It Took a Rumor (8 page)

He stood and faced her. “Absolutely,” he agreed. Then he cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. This wasn’t
 
courtship, he knew that good and well. But Ivy wasn’t some random woman he’d met at a bar and would never see again. She was his neighbor. The little girl he’d once bought cotton candy for at the fair. And beyond all that, a good woman. He stood a little taller, cleared his throat once more, and asked, “Could I walk you home?” It was supposed to be, ‘Will you have dinner with me,’ but he just couldn’t quite pull that off.
 

Ivy smiled. “You’re a real gentleman. But no thanks. In fact, I’d rather just forget this happened.”

He frowned over at his truck as though he could see the ghost of what had happened there. She wanted to forget it happened? Well, that sucked. “Um, yeah,” he stammered, not sure how to answer.
 

“No need to acknowledge it anymore? No need to talk about it?”

He nodded, still frowning, still wishing he could have a moment to formulate what he wanted to say. He wasn’t above trying to convince her to see where it would go. “Sure, Ivy. Whatever you want.” The words were distant and insincere.

She bent down and picked his hat out of the water where it had hung up on a rock. With a grin, she plopped it on his head. He closed his eyes as water dripped down the sides of his face and neck, and opened them again in time to see her skipping through the creek and over the fence.

He watched her gather her book and boots, take her horse by the reins, and walk over the hill and out of his sight. There was self-recrimination. How could he have dishonored and endangered her like that? There was also satisfaction. Because holding her in his arms had easily been the most meaningful moment of his life. But more than anything, there was regret. Because that might have been the only window of opportunity Fate would put in his way, and the thought of never holding that girl again made him suddenly weak and achy.

With a sigh, he forced himself back into a mindset of work. Romance or no romance, sex or no sex, the chores had to be done.
 

Present Day

Ivy knew that their second breakfast meeting at the diner would be all business, but she couldn’t seem to get that message across to the part of her brain that picked out her clothes, because she ended up in the same sundress she’d worn at the creek that afternoon, in the same boots she hadn’t been wearing. Not the same panties, though. Those had been shredded.
 

She smiled at the memory.

Then she berated herself for smiling at the memory. She couldn’t quite bring herself to change clothes, though. Perhaps he would recognize the dress and be thrown off kilter. Perhaps he wouldn’t even notice it.

She drove to the diner where he was already waiting, in a corner booth this time. He didn’t stand, which was unusually ungentlemanly of him. He did lean forward as though he was about to stand and changed his mind at the last minute.
 

Ivy slid across from him, flipped her coffee mug over, and pulled out her phone. When in a business meeting with a bullheaded cowboy, a good way to get the upper hand was to hold a high-tech gadget and pretend you were completely interested in what was on the screen. “Old man have a change of heart?” she asked without looking at him.
 

“Not exactly,” Jake answered.

When he didn’t volunteer any more information than that—a power play, Ivy was certain—she let out an exaggerated sigh and placed her phone on the table. “So why am I here?”

Jake opened his mouth, but paused when the waitress came by to fill their coffee mugs. “Can I get you two anything else this morning?” she asked, reaching for her order pad, eyes only for Jake.
 

“Just coffee, thanks,” Ivy said firmly.

The waitress cast her a pressed-lip smile and turned away. Jake didn’t appear to have noticed the waitress at all. Instead, he was giving Ivy a rather intense once-over, his eyes narrowed and roaming her face. “Something’s different,” he said.

“Just say what you got to say, Jake.” She didn’t pick up her coffee cup. Her hand might tremble, and she wasn’t about to show weakness here.

Jake gave himself a shake, his focus returning to business. “Yeah. So, the old man has a counteroffer.”

Ivy leaned back. The old man has a counteroffer? That was a far different approach than he’d taken ten days ago when it was all “we” and “us.” Ivy allowed herself a little smile. There was blood in the water, she could smell it. With her now steady hand, she lifted her coffee mug to her lips. “Let’s hear it,” she said, and threw in a quick glance at her watch, just for effect.

Jake’s eyes narrowed, again, as he leaned forward. “Your hair’s down,” he said.

Her coffee sloshed. “The counteroffer?”

“He wants to buy the Hampton property.”

Ivy smirked. “
He
wants to buy the Hampton property?”

“I mean, we.”

“Of course you do.”

Jake slumped back in his seat like a pouty child who’d just been gotten the better of. Ivy could have laughed at him, then, but she had more important stakes to drive home. “First of all, Jake, the Hampton property has been the Turner property for ten years, now, and it ain’t for sale. Secondly, what’s Gideon think he’s gonna do? You all own your property free and clear. Why would he borrow against that just to send a ‘screw-you’ to my old man? And how can you, as the heir apparent, even pretend to support a decision like that? You know your grandchildren would be paying that off.”

Jake was all-out scowling, now. His big arms folded over his big chest. Not many men could look anything but menacing or childish when they were pouting…Jake was dead sexy. His dark eyes bored into hers. “It’s the dress,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” She sat her coffee mug down. It rattled once on its saucer. She withdrew her hand and folded it in her lap.
 

“The dress. I know that dress. Intimately.”

“Listen, if you don’t want to talk business, then—”

“If you wanted to talk business you’d be in one of those prissy black skirts with your hair in a bun and your nails all manicured.”

“This is ridiculous.” She turned and started to scoot out of the booth before he could see the heat in her cheeks. But he propped his boot on the seat next to her, trapping her. “Move your big, dumb foot, Jake.”

“Know what I think?”

“Nope. And I don’t care.” Time to get the hell out of there and have a ritual burning of that bad luck dress.
 

“I think you’re angling for another off-the-books meeting down by the creek. That what you want, Ivy?”

“We agreed never to mention that.”

“You got a lot of nerve wearing that dress in here,” he said with a smirk. “You wanted me to mention it, admit it.”

“Let. Me. Go.”

“I’d be happy to meet you again, you know. Been thinking about asking you out.”

Ivy searched her mind for the low-blow and found it. “It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that I don’t think I can spare the two and a half minutes.”

He dropped his foot and his smirk, his eyes widening and the color draining from his face. “That was a mean thing to say, Ivy.”

She snorted as she stood and grabbed her cell phone. “Don’t get your ego in a twist, baby. At your age, there are worse problems to have.” With a wink, she turned and sashayed the hell out of there before he could think of a comeback.

On the drive back to her office, though, it wasn’t her verbal victory that played over in her mind. It was the fact that he’d offered to meet her again…that he’d admitted to having wanted to ask her out. Why would he admit that to her? Had he been trying to play her? Or did he really like her?

For some reason, Ivy spent the rest of her day glancing at her phone. Whether she was hoping for him to call or deciding whether to call him, neither happened.
 

Jake finished his coffee. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t want it. In fact, it kind of burned his stomach. Maybe it was simply that after being figuratively kicked in the balls, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk. Even after he finished that cup, he signaled the waitress for a refill.
 

“Where’d your girl go?” the waitress asked as she poured.

“She’s not my girl.” He frowned down at the black liquid swirling in his cup.

“Well, it’s her loss.”

Jake pulled his cell phone from his pocket and stared at it, not sure what he’d find there. He had Ivy’s number. He could text her. It wasn’t really pride, stopping him. Her remark had definitely deeply offended him and awakened in him the itch to prove to her that he could last a hell of a lot longer than two and a half minutes; but more than that, it had cast doubt in his mind. Considering that the brief history of his relationship with Ivy consisted of her walking away without looking back, he couldn’t help questioning whether her feelings for him matched his for her. And no man wanted to put his heart on the line when there was the potential of it getting ruthlessly stomped on.

Still. There was the dress.
 

Why would she have worn it? She had to have known he’d recognize it. He’d had his hands all up in that dress. Then again, she hadn’t originally worn it for him. She’d worn it for comfort on a warm day when she’d been headed out to relax and read. Maybe the same was true to today. Maybe she’d worn it because she was taking the day off after their meeting. Maybe she hadn’t intended to send his head straight to fantasyland and make him hard as a steel rod right there in a public place.

“Well, well, well. Mr. Jake Deathridge.”

Jake looked up from his coffee to see Myra Tidwell sliding into the booth across from him, her cell phone and stylus out and ready. Never one to blend into the background, Myra had on black and white striped leggings and an aqua blouse with a matching aqua turban. Her array of plastic bracelets clacked together as she thumb-tapped her phone.

“You sure are tech-savvy for a little old lady, Mrs. Tidwell,” Jake said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Do you have any comments on your brother’s relationship with Ivy?”

Jake looked into her zealous blue eyes and just shook his head. “Ain’t you got any grandkids or quilting partners or something to spend your time on?”

“I do, as a matter of fact. But social reporting is my passion. Now…about Ivy and Dallas.”

“I just met with Ivy, just a couple minutes before you showed up. Didn’t anyone report that to you?”

Myra’s ears perked up. They actually, literally moved.
 

“How come,” Jake continued, “you don’t assume because she was talking with me, just now, that I’m the one sleeping with her?”

“Are you?”

“You know what else? I saw Ivy and Molly Allen having tea together through the window of the shop up the street just a couple days ago. Maybe Ivy and Molly are sleeping together.”

Myra’s eyes narrowed.

“Hell, maybe Ivy ain’t even actually human. Maybe she’s an alien bodysnatcher come to seduce unsuspecting cowboys into impregnating her so she can populate the earth with human-alien-cowboy hybrids and end the human race as we know it.”

Myra leaned back and pursed her lips. “You have a terrible attitude, young man. I wonder how your mother would feel about you behaving so rudely.”

“I’m sure I’ll find out tonight after she watches your newest video.”

Myra clucked her tongue and slipped her phone into her purse. “Be a stubborn mule if you want. I’ll get to the bottom of this mystery.”

Jake had been the subject of Myra’s gossip blog off and on for as long as he could remember. All of his brothers had. As well as most of the people in town. It really didn’t bother anyone. Myra’s words didn’t typically make much of a splash. But he couldn’t help being offended on Ivy’s behalf. “You know, she doesn’t deserve this.” He frowned, surprised that he’d said that out loud.

Myra looked up, interested once again. “Doesn’t deserve what, dear?”

“Having her name slandered. She’s a good person. A hard worker. A devoted daughter. And I promise you she didn’t do anything unethical with any of my brothers. So…can’t you ease back? Find some fresh meat?”

“It sounds to me like you care for Ivy.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I do respect her. And her father. They’re good people, both of them.”

“Is Jared Turner trying to buy your ranch?”

“That’s old news, Myra. Jared Turner has been trying to buy our ranch for over ten years, now.”

“Why won’t your father consider selling?”

Jake pressed his lips together. Myra had just stepped foot onto family business. She was the biggest mouth in the state of Oklahoma. But then, maybe if he gave her something else to chew on, she’d leave poor Ivy alone. He knew the answer to her question. Gideon didn’t want to sell because he loved their small-time ranch and wanted to pass something down to his sons, simple as that. But Myra didn’t have to know that.
 

So instead of the truth, Jake asked a question. He frowned as though deep in thought and said, “You know, I’m not sure. Turner’s offer is good. I just wonder if maybe there’s something else going on…some kind of old rivalry or something. You know?” He leaned back, frowned a little longer, then let out a laugh. “But that’s silly. I’m sure I’m overthinking it. Anyway, it don’t matter. We ain’t selling. And you can just get off poor Ivy’s back, because as much as she and her father want our property, they’d neither one of them use a mercenary marriage to get it done.”

Myra had clearly stopped listening to him after the part about an “old rivalry.” As he’d said the words, her eyes had gone wide and her gaze distant. She was already drumming up the possibilities.
 

After she left, Jake smiled to himself. It felt good, doing something nice for that cold-hearted man-eater whom he just could not stop daydreaming about. He didn’t think much past that. If Myra stirred up things between Jared and Gideon, it couldn’t be as bad as what she’d done to Ivy.
 

And once the heat was off Ivy, maybe she would give him a chance to beat his less-than-stellar record of two and a half minutes.